The Long Walk

As a change in pace, my partner suggested we go for a two day hike on the Kii Peninsula, undoubtedly after a nicely targeted ad caught her attention. The hike in question is the Kumano Kodo, a religious pilgrimage across the Kii peninsula, starting on either side, and really ending wherever you feel like ending. Clearly the travel agency and the hotels dealing with Kumano hikers are still in their proverbial infancy, as booking and arrangements for the hike are quite (technically) crude. However, reports of hikes in the area (dare I say “reviews”), as well as our own adventurous spririt made us pull the trigger and book an overnight stay in the middle of the hike. This meant we would spend the first night at our starting point, walk to the lodgings for the second night, then walk to the third stop, and then continue on our trainbound journey.

Intro

In my previous two food posts I covered what I consider to be mostly large meals, or at least meals that are capable of carrying themselves on their own. In this post, I want to take a look at smaller dishes I tried in Japan, as well as less Japanese dishes with that specific twist.

A Short Trip

When you travel to Japan and you subsequently let anyone know of your destination, the response is largely the same every time: “Wow! Japan! I have always wanted to go there!” For me it was no different, except that I had had the plan in mind for a couple of years, but never had the money or time to make it happen. With discussion around house-buying and child-rearing starting to take the podium, I decided that money had to be spent, and decisions had to be made. In the summer of 2016, my partner, my brother, and I decided we would travel to Japan in the fall of 2018, around my partner’s birthday.

Intro

Rice is well written about as the staple of the Japanese diet, as well as the rest of the South-East Asian world. In Japan, rice is important and every part of their culture speaks to that fact. For instance, you can find rice in the names of the three main meals of the day, which are literally “morning rice”, “afternoon rice” and “evening rice”. It is not shocking that rice is served with almost every dish that you order, especially when the dishes are of a more classic style. Every single supermarket carries morning-fresh sushi, even kiosks in train stations, in lieu of supermarket sandwiches, and every bento is at least 35% rice.

Intro

In terms of food, Japan has easily my favorite cuisine. The beauty lies in the large variety of typically Japanese food, where in other countries the national cuisine is based on a few key dishes. In Japan, not so much. The dishes produced under the denominator of Japanese culture are both simple and complex, exotic and familiar, spicy, umami, and all the other flavours.